Chapter 107: The Gu Matures

Long Xuan did not unleash his imagination to speculate on what effects a house built by the Straw Gu would possess.

Themed Gu Refining was simply too time-consuming.

This time, he prepared to use the Random Method for Gu Refining; the abilities of the resulting Gu Worm would be entirely random, and he was no longer fixated on earning that single hundred million Contribution points, feeling content just to freeload a few tens of millions.

Precisely because he was not very dedicated to researching the Gu Formula this time, he successfully completed it in merely two days.

Using the same one hundred types of materials, he ordered his Clone to purchase everything from the Market and immediately began Gu Refining.

Since the Straw Gu required a certain amount of time to mature, Long Xuan naturally had no intention of wasting this interval; taking advantage of the gap during the Gu's maturation, he prepared to grind out the Thousand Flower Pill Formula.

The Hundred Flowers Pill was ineffective for Gu Cultivators at the Marrow Cleansing stage, so he could only follow the patterns of that formula to research an advanced version: the Thousand Flower Pill Formula.

Since the Hundred Flowers Pill was hailed as the strongest Pill for advancing cultivation at the Qi Refining stage, the upgraded Thousand Flower Pill must surely be the strongest Pill for advancing cultivation at the Marrow Cleansing stage.

He had to utilize pill consumption to drastically increase his Cultivation Speed, and creating the Thousand Flower Pill Formula was something he absolutely had to do; when combined with the Spirit Spring, his future Cultivation Speed would multiply by an unknown factor.

With the Hundred Flowers Pill as a template, the Thousand Flower Pill was merely a matter of finding patterns, so the difficulty of creation was not significant.

It was just that the quantity of materials was somewhat large, causing him to waste two months of time.

After writing "Long Xuan Zhe" on the Thousand Flower Pill Formula, Long Xuan placed it inside that Small Box, then stood up and stretched heavily, finally walking out of this small pavilion.

His gaze swept toward the rabbit in the Medicine Garden; since arriving here, the rabbit had been extremely excited upon seeing the Spirit Medicine scattered everywhere, subsequently settling down in this Medicine Garden with not the slightest intention of fleeing.

He gave this rabbit a resounding name: Jade Rabbit Fairy.

At this moment, placed before the Jade Rabbit Fairy was a massive Alchemy Furnace towering many times her height.

Beneath the Alchemy Furnace burned the Ice Cold Divine Flame; at this moment, the Jade Rabbit Fairy was refining pills with rapt attention, her expression filled with seriousness as she focused entirely on the Flame beneath the pill furnace.

Before long, the Flame extinguished, the furnace lid flew open, and several Spirit Pills flew out from within the furnace, landing in a Pill Bottle placed on the ground.

The Jade Rabbit Fairy picked up the Pill Bottle, gently sniffed the Pill Fragrance drifting from its mouth, and revealed an expression of intoxication.

Witnessing this scene, Long Xuan was shocked; this rabbit's alchemy skills were not bad at all, possessing some real ability.

Long Xuan was truly amazed, examining the rabbit with a surprised gaze; he had not expected this rabbit to possess such outstanding Alchemy Techniques, which was indeed far beyond his expectations.

He then looked again at the Pill Formula on the ground and discovered it was precisely one of the formulas he had created himself.

It could not exactly be called self-created; he had merely improved many Pill Formulas from this world, even marking units of measurement like grams and degrees Celsius on the formula—something a normal person would truly fail to understand—yet unexpectedly, this rabbit had comprehended it; what an alchemy genius!

Long Xuan looked at this rabbit with an expression of interest; originally, he had been considering what kind of pill this rabbit could be used to refine, but now he had changed his mind.

Would refining pills with it not be a waste of heavenly treasures? With such an excellent alchemy genius rabbit, it would be a pity not to make good use of it.

In the future, he would let it work for him, having it refine pills for him every day; would that not be delightful?

In this way, he could save the time spent on alchemy to do other things, and he could also take the Spirit Pills refined by the rabbit to exchange for resources, creating another path to wealth; this was killing multiple birds with one stone, and such an excellent worker was hard to find.

Long Xuan lightly stroked his chin, revealing a devilish smile, and immediately formed a plan in his heart.

He took out the Thousand Flower Pill Formula he had just placed in the box, threw it before the rabbit, and smiled kindly, saying, "Jade Rabbit Fairy, I am entrusting you with a fine task."

"You will refine the Spirit Pills from this Thousand Flower Pill Formula, and the pills you refine will serve as your tuition fee for learning this formula."

Long Xuan's skill at freeloading had long been refined to perfection; he wanted the rabbit to work yet did not want to pay it wages; there was probably no boss in the world more black-hearted than him.

Seeing a new Pill Formula appear before her, the Jade Rabbit Fairy immediately revealed an expression of interest.

After all, this rabbit's hobby was alchemy, so of course she would be full of interest upon seeing a new formula.

However, when she saw that this formula actually contained a full one thousand types of materials, her expression immediately collapsed; one thousand types of materials—how long would it take to refine that?

Seeing the rabbit's surprised expression, Long Xuan faintly revealed a smile.

Thousand Flower Pill, Thousand Flower Pill—of course, it would require one thousand types of Spirit Flowers as materials.

Precisely because the quantity of materials in this formula was truly too large, and each refinement consumed a massive amount of time, he was unwilling to refine it himself, preparing to hand this time-consuming work over to the rabbit.

He was busy handling myriad affairs every day; how could he have time to refine pills with such a lengthy formula?

Since he now had a working rabbit, he might as well entrust this arduous and heavy responsibility entirely to her.

Do not look at the fact that the Thousand Flower Pill has many materials; having many materials has its benefits: Material Conservation dictates that formulas with more materials yield more pills.

As long as the Thousand Flower Pill is successfully refined once, it can produce several hundred pills in a single batch; merely one furnace would be enough for him to use for a very long time.

As for the materials for the Thousand Flower Pill, the Medicine Garden had them all; in order to massively expand the population of Ice Bees, Long Xuan had been frantically planting flowers in the Medicine Garden, so his garden was extremely complete in terms of Flower-type Spiritual Medicine.

The fact that all materials needed for the Thousand Flower Pill could be found in his Medicine Garden was not a coincidence; it could be said to be inevitable.

Therefore, the materials required for the Thousand Flower Pill could be entirely self-sufficient within the Medicine Garden; he just needed to let the rabbit pick them herself.

However, he must teach her sustainable development; absolutely he could not let her act as she did in the Ancient Tomb, picking without planting, resulting in all Spirit Medicine in the Medicine Garden being picked clean by her, leaving only Spirit Grass.

Ignoring the still-dazed rabbit, Long Xuan walked toward the location of the Straw Gu, his eyes revealing an expression of anticipation.

Speaking of which, the Straw Gu had already matured long ago; it was just that building its house required time, which was why Long Xuan had not yet submitted his research results to the Cultivation Clan.

As early as when the Straw Gu matured, he had placed various materials before it: there was Wood, there was Metal, there was Beast Material; every kind of material had been placed before the Straw Gu, piling up like a mountain.

Seeing so many high-quality building materials, this insect that loved building houses immediately revealed an excited expression and ran over excitedly to select its construction materials.

Sometimes it would pick up a piece of Metal only to drop it and pick up a piece of Wood; one moment it would look at this material, the next at that one, revealing an expression of hesitation; it had actually become spoiled for choice in an instant, unsure which type of material to select.

It was also Long Xuan's fault for being too wealthy; his Storage Bag contained all sorts of good things, causing the Straw Gu to suffer from analysis paralysis momentarily.

Long Xuan watched with great interest; he greatly enjoyed watching the Straw Gu build various exquisite small houses, and he was also very curious about what shape the small house this Straw Gu was about to build would take.

Since this Straw Gu was refined by him using the Random Method, its abilities were unknown; even after establishing a Blood Contract with it, he still could not discern its abilities; perhaps its secret lay within the small house it was building.

Therefore, Long Xuan could only wait patiently.

However, this Straw Gu pursued perfection in building houses and would never cut corners, resulting in a very slow construction speed.

Long Xuan finally lost his patience, left this place, and went to grind out the Thousand Flower Pill Formula.

Now that the Thousand Flower Pill Formula had been ground out by him, he wondered how the house construction had progressed over such a long period; curiosity immediately surged in Long Xuan, and he prepared to go see its masterpiece at once.

As soon as he arrived at the scene, Long Xuan was stunned by two exquisite small houses on the ground.

He could not help but marvel at the Straw Gu's artistic cells; it possessed aesthetics, and the houses it built were truly not bad.

The first house it built was pyramid-shaped, but narrow at the bottom and wide at the top, with the tip of the tower thrust straight into the soil; it had actually built an inverted Pyramid, truly a wild flight of fancy.

The second house it built was somewhat more complex, resembling several thick ropes tangled together in a dead knot; this house was intricately intertwined with numerous passages inside, just like a huge maze—whoever lived in such a house would surely get lost?

Humans could never construct houses of such a shape; only insects, with their different neural pathways, would build homes with such wildly imaginative designs.

Nevertheless, it was truly fascinating, and Long Xuan's interest was growing higher by the moment.

He saw that Bagworm Gu was currently selecting construction materials from the pile, preparing to build a third house; truly a diligent and capable construction worker—could it be that he was about to gain another laborer? Long Xuan found this strange.

However, he was soon startled, suddenly recalling that the Bagworm Moth was the architectural master of the insect world; while it indeed loved building small houses, it usually built only one, just enough for its own dwelling.

Yet after evolving into Bagworm Gu, its habits seemed to have changed; after finishing one house, it wasn't satisfied, but proceeded to build a second, then a third...

Its current habit was no longer to build just a single house, but to construct houses all over the world, the more the better; it had become a maniac for building houses.

Such a shift in Bagworm Gu's interests must have a cause; such a personality change would not occur without reason.

Long Xuan wore an expression of contemplation; could its ability be related to the number of houses? he wondered in his heart.

To verify his speculation, he walked up to Bagworm Gu, which was happily selecting building materials, snatched the materials from its hands, then picked it up, carried it to the small house tangled with chaotic ropes, and stuffed it directly inside.

However, Bagworm Gu only wanted to build a third house and had no desire to sleep, so it ran out of the house again.

Long Xuan caught it and stuffed it back inside.

Bagworm Gu ran out again, and Long Xuan stuffed it back in again.

This human and this gu were now locked in a standoff; after an unknown number of rounds of this back-and-forth stalemate, Bagworm Gu finally chose to compromise and ceased coming out.

However, Long Xuan's peripheral vision suddenly caught Bagworm Gu emerging from that Pyramid house, then diving back into the material pile to continue selecting building supplies.

Long Xuan's pupils instantly contracted; he immediately stood up, his expression filled with great shock, for he was now thoroughly stunned.

Bagworm Gu had actually emerged from one of the other small houses; he simply could not believe his eyes—what kind of inconceivable ability was this?

He was dumbfounded; did this not mean that the small houses built by Bagworm Gu were all connected, allowing it to shuttle back and forth among all of them?

If two small houses were separated by an extremely vast distance, did this not mean Bagworm Gu could use the small houses to instantly appear in another distant region?

Such an ability was truly terrifying; a Bagworm Gu possessing such power would undoubtedly have first-class escape capabilities.

Once it encountered any danger, it could simply drill into one of its small houses and instantly appear in another distant region; who could possibly catch up to it?

No wonder it wanted to build so many houses; originally, it was employing the strategy of 'a cunning hare has three burrows.' If it possessed such an ability, then its change in habits was perfectly explainable.

(End of Chapter)